e
his voice was thick with anger--

"I lifted a snipe o' a man, and I flung him the back of the fire. What
is there in that to be running from?

"If the man has freens, I'll meet them a' wherever they like; but this
running sticks in my gizzard. It's just ain brother tae caul' fear,"
and we marched on in grim silence.

On the mountains my feet were almost without feeling at all with the
cold, and my clothes sticking to my shoulders with sweat; and on the
last of the hills McKinnon clapped like a startled hare.

"Look at yon," he whispered; "they're to win'ward o' us after a'."

Far below us a little light flickered and blinked on the hillside, and
we watched it, hardly breathing, and again I heard my heart begin to
pound.

After some wee while of watching, Dan grunted--

"Umph!" says he. "Ye see droll things in the hills when ye're rinnin'
for dear life. Yon's just Tchonie Handy Ishable and his lantern."

"I never would be believing that story," said Ronny.

"Man, if I had the time I would get his secret this night," says Dan.
"Ye see, Hamish, yon's an old man down yonder, and they'll be saying he
pays the Duke's rent in the big money. They've the story of how he
found a hoard o' it among the hills; and it's likely enough, for many's
the bold stark lad took to the Southern Seas from these glens. Och,
an' I ken folk mysel' that found an iron pot o' doubloons in the peat
bink; but aul' Tchonie, he just takes what he will be needin', and he
takes it at night when the folks are abed. They used to be following
him, but he was skilly among the rocks, and they would maybe come on
his lantern sitting lighted, and once they found a dagger stuck at the
entrance to a cave to keep the wee folk from shuttin' it when a man was
inside; but they were never able to get the secret, for Tchonie Handy
Ishable would be sittin' over his peat fire when the lads came back in
the mornin'."

At the screich o' day we came from Glen Chalmadale into the thatched
village of Loch Ranza. At a house some way back from the others
McKinnon stopped us.

"The man that lives here is a farmer and a fisherman," said he, "and a
very po-lite man in his taalk moreover, for I know him well," and he
mimicked the Loch Ranza speech, which, indeed, is very proper speech,
and I was very startled at one time to hear the very weans with the
polite way of it.

"Ye will be havin' the dogs on us," says Dan in a low voice; "and
there's folks here tha